life and death reading (Sinh Tu)

The last point, everyone reaches it: how does one face the “near-death”, and how does one bear the “living”?

Life and death is a matter of leaving oneself out of the question, except when asking for oneself. And it is rare for anyone to ask for themselves, for many reasons: perhaps no one wants to know the last point when the result is certain, or there is no time to worry about it. Note that this differs from asking about illness. When one faces it, the one worried about is no longer oneself, and then the person who needs to ask reads only the corresponding Target line, without weighing the Self line; then whatever the Self line may be, even changing into control, it does not affect oneself. But if one feels too uneasy, casting one more hexagram does no harm.

The substance of life and death

Life and death, in substance, is whether the Target line holds or is spoilt: holds is life, spoilt is death.

A still hexagram

In a still hexagram, a Prosperous Target line lives, a Weak one dies, Resting lives.

• If the illness is long standing, the Void will die, Six Clashes dies too
• The Tomb with Prosperity lives, Resting with the Tomb dies too
• Weak with the Tomb meeting Birth, or the Peak, lives too
• Break dies too; if it meets its own branch or a combination of the Day, count it as an ordinary line
• Hidden and Prosperous lives too, Resting lives too, but if Resting and the Flying line controls or drains it, it dies
• A Target line holding the Self line and Weak does not report the querent as being in mortal danger; it is only a coincidence (reading another person’s health does not weigh the Self line)
• Resting and punished is spoilt too; Hidden and Resting with the Flying line punishing is the same
• Three Punishments, however Prosperous, dies

A hexagram with moving lines

With a hexagram that has moving lines:

• The Opposing line moving and stronger than the Target line means death, the timing falling on the Opposing line
• The Opposing line moving with the Source line moving, and Target and Source not rootless, means life, the timing falling on the Target line
• The Opposing line moving with the Source line moving, the Source line in the Tomb, means death, the timing falling on the Opposing line
• The Opposing line moving but weaker than the Target line means life, the timing falling on the clash of the Opposing line, and recovery of health
• A Target line inside a triple combination is not a case of long illness ending in death; the strength of the Target line is still weighed. If the Target line is rootless but forms a triple combination with a frame whose element matches the Target line, the Target line counts as Prosperous by default, counted as Prosperous, the timing falling on the clash of the Target line
• A triple combination with a surplus branch inside the hexagram still forms a triple combination; Three Punishments with a surplus branch inside the hexagram does not form Three Punishments
• Void with the Tomb dies; Void with the Tomb but with a usable moving Source line lives; a Void Source line with a moving Tomb dies; a Void Source line with the Tomb, plus another moving line generating, lives, the timing being the clash that fills the Void
• A Void Target line that moves is still weighed for near and far and for being incurable. Break does not count
• Six Clashes likewise: weigh near and far and being incurable
• The Flying line generating the Hidden line but the Flying line spoilt is not the same as a moving Source line being spoilt
• A moving Hostile line certainly dies
• Resting and drained dies
• Resting and combined by the Day or the Month, drained, the line counts back as Resting; if combined by both Day and Month at once it counts as Prosperous
• A line combining a line inside the hexagram, one of the two being the Source line, dies; if the Target line is at the Peak it lives
• Likewise with the Source line in the Tomb, combined, or changing into control: only a Target line at the Peak lives
• Break changing into Extinction dies, as with Void and the Tomb for a Void line
• A line directly in the chain when several lines move, where the Source line is controlled and the Target line is not at the Peak, dies
• The Target line controlled by a directly interacting line that is stronger dies, with no need to weigh to the end

See also

• Pregnancy reading (Thai Ky)
• Void (Xun Kong)
• Life cycle (Chang Sheng)
• Hidden line (Fu Shen)
• Flying line (Fei Shen)
• Several moving lines

— Bốc Dịch Đại Toàn, Vi Nhật Sơn · bocdichvotranh.com